Misfortunes of Imaginary Beings

A blog formerly known as Bookishness / By Charles Matthews

"Dazzled by so many and such marvelous inventions, the people of Macondo ... became indignant over the living images that the prosperous merchant Bruno Crespi projected in the theater with the lion-head ticket windows, for a character who had died and was buried in one film and for whose misfortune tears had been shed would reappear alive and transformed into an Arab in the next one. The audience, who had paid two cents apiece to share the difficulties of the actors, would not tolerate that outlandish fraud and they broke up the seats. The mayor, at the urging of Bruno Crespi, explained in a proclamation that the cinema was a machine of illusions that did not merit the emotional outbursts of the audience. With that discouraging explanation many ... decided not to return to the movies, considering that they already had too many troubles of their own to weep over the acted-out misfortunes of imaginary beings."
--Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

Wednesday, July 10, 2024

Phffft (Mark Robson, 1954)

Cast: Judy Holliday, Jack Lemmon, Jack Carson, Kim Novak, Luella Gear, Donald Randolph, Donald Curtis. Screenplay: George Axelrod. Cinematography: Charles Lang. Art direction: William Flannery. Film editing: Charles Nelson. Music: Friedrich Hollaender.

Tuesday, July 9, 2024

Obsession (Brian De Palma, 1976)

Cast: Cliff Robertson, Geneviève Bujold, John Lithgow, Sylvia Kuumba Williams, Wanda Blackman, J. Patrick McNamara, Stanley J. Reyes, Nick Krieger, Stocker Fonelieu. Screenplay: Brian De Palma, Paul Schrader. Cinematography: Vilmos Zsigmond. Art direction: Jack Senter. Film editing: Paul Hirsch. Music: Bernard Herrmann.

Monday, July 8, 2024

Tempest (Paul Mazursky, 1982)

Cast: John Cassavetes, Gena Rowlands, Susan Sarandon, Molly Ringwald, Raul Julia, Vittorio Gassman, Sam Robards, Paul Stewart, Jackie Gayle, Antony Holland, Jerry Hardin, Lucianne Buchanan. Screenplay: Paul Mazursky, Leon Capetanos, based on a play by William Shakespeare. Cinematography: Donald McAlpine. Production design: Pato Guzman. Film editing: Donn Cambern. Music: Stomu Yamashta.

Sunday, July 7, 2024

Times Square (Allan Moyle, 1980)

Cast: Trini Alvarado, Robin Johnson, Tim Curry, Peter Coffield, Herbert Berghof, David Margulies, Anna Maria Hosford, Michael Margotta, J.C. Quinn, Miguel Pinero. Screenplay: Jacob Brackman, Allan Moyle, Leanne Ungar. Cinematography: James A. Contner. Production design: Stuart Wurtzel. Film editing: Tom Priestley. Music: Blue Weaver.

Saturday, July 6, 2024

Godzilla vs. Biollante (Kazuki Omori, 1989)

Cast: Kunihiko Mitamura, Yoshiko Tanaka, Masanobu Takashima, Koji Takahashi, Toru Minegishi, Megumi Odaka, Toshiyuki Nagashima, Ryunosuke Kaneda, Yasuko Sawaguchi, Kazuma Matsubara. Screenplay: Shinichiro Kobayashi, Shin'ichi Sekizawa, Kazuki Omori. Cinematography: Yudai Kato. Production design: Shigekazu Ikuno. Film editing: Michiko Ikeda. Music: Koichi Sugiyama.

Thursday, July 4, 2024

Cop (James B. Harris, 1988)

Cast: James Woods, Charles Durning, Lesley Ann Warren, Charles Haid, Raymond J. Barry, Randi Brooks, Stephen Lambert. Screenplay: James B. Harris, based on a novel by James Ellroy. Cinematography: Steve Dubin. Production design: Gene Rudolf. Film editing: Anthony Spano. Music: Michael Colombier.